Top 5 Online Marketing Tools and 20 ways to Use Them

As a business owner, entrepreneur, or marketer you have already plenty of things to do to move your business forward. So when you want to do more in less time how do you decide what productivity tools to use?

And after you decide which tools to use, you still need to learn how to use them in a way that make sense for your needs. It’s not unusual for some to decide that the learning curve is too steep and not worth the effort. Yet for others a particular tool can be an absolute must-have because it can help get more sales.

An example of a tool with steep learning curve is Google Analytics. GA is not an easy tool by any means. If you are a “data” person then it maybe easy for you to learn provided you can invest a good amount of time learning it. But if you are a business owner or someone that is not fond of geeky stuff then GA is probably something that you may want to delegate to someone else.

When I want to look for a tool, the first thing I do is determine what area of online marketing I want to focus on. Then I decide what specific objective (or task to be done) I want to accomplish.

Here are 3 quick high level questions to answer:

1) Do I want to do the task in less time?

2) Do I want to get better results?

3) Do I need to increase accuracy and/or performance of results?

The article below by Neil Patel covers these five tools in some detail to give you a quick survey of your options and ways to use them. Hopefully one or more of them attracts your attention enough to research further.

If you’re a fan of my blog, you know this is one tool I talk about, time after time. And, here’s why: it’s one of the most versatile tools for online marketing professionals of all experience levels. Even better, it only takes a couple minutes to understand what it offers.

A simple BuzzSumo search will uncover a variety of information, all of which can be used to help you reach your goals. However, there are several ways, in particular, that you should use this tool.

1. Search by Topic or Domain

It all starts with the search button. You have the option to search by topic or by domain, with each one providing similar information.

For example, you could search the phrase “content marketing” or you could enter the domain “NeilPatel.com.”

Either way, you’re immediately taken to a page with in-depth information regarding the content that performs best for your keyword or competitor.

2. To Uncover Topic Ideas

Are you finding it difficult to generate new topic ideas? With BuzzSumo, this is no longer a problem. Not only can you generate fresh ideas, but you can base your new content concepts off of those that have already performed at a high level.

For example, a search for “content marketing” shows the following:

You know that these posts are performing well, in terms of social shares and backlinks. Can you create a post that has even more to offer?

3. To Better Understand Social Reach

If you want to take full advantage of social media, BuzzSumo allows you to better understand what type of content is generating the best response.

To go along with a list of titles, as you can see above, you’re also presented with the following:

Doesn’t it make sense to create similar content (only better), in hopes of achieving the same social reach or better?

4. Backlink Opportunities

Email outreach is a big part of building backlinks and showing others that you are an authority in your space.

But, here’s the question: how can you most efficiently spend your time?

With each result, BuzzSumo provides a link to a list of backlinks for each post. Once you create your content, you can then reach out to these sites and introduce yourself. Since you know that they’re interested in what you have to offer, your chance of striking up a conversation and securing a link is much greater.

Hootsuite can help you “get serious about social.” If that’s what you want to do, there are a few key ways that you should be using this tool.

5. Schedule Updates in Advance

One of the biggest problems with social media is finding enough time to create regular updates. After all, this isn’t something that you want to focus on today and then forget about for a few weeks. Social media success is all about staying on track, day in and day out.

With Hootsuite, you can schedule updates, in advance. This ensures that your profiles are kept current, all without having to lift a daily finger.

6. Collaborate With Your Team

Social media isn’t always a one man show. You may have many other team members working on this part of your business.

With Hootsuite, it’s easy to share ideas, request approvals and reject updates that may not be the right fit.

Best yet, all of this information is available on the Hootsuite dashboard, allowing for a streamlined process.

7. Review Analytics Data

If you want to better understand your social reach, among other data points, Hootsuite can help you in a variety of ways. This all starts with creating a report:

From there, you can choose the type of report that suits you best. For example, a Twitter Profile Overview offers the following:

“Provides an overview of your Twitter account. Includes follower growth over time, keyword mentions and most popular Owly links.”

As you know, I enjoy digging through data, in an attempt to better understand my business. You can use Hootsuite to collect all of the most important information, as it relates to your social media platforms.

8. Attach Media

There are many ways to make your social media updates stand out, including the use of media. From images to videos, Hootsuite has you covered.

As you’re scheduling updates, here’s what you’ll see:

From here, all that you have to do is compose your message, add your photos or videos and publish (or schedule) the update.

There are many programs for tracking website visitors and related data, but Google Analytics is by far the most popular. For this reason, you should take the time to learn more about this online marketing tool.

Many people don’t consider it a tool for online marketers, but that’s exactly what it is. With the right approach, you can use it to better understand your audience and to develop a plan for future growth.

9. Traffic Breakdown

You know that people are visiting your website, but you won’t understand what they’re doing, until you take a closer look. This all starts with a high level overview of your traffic. It will look something like this:

When you use this data as a jumping off point, you’ll better understand what you’re looking at, as you dig deeper.

10. Where Are Your Visitors Coming From?

From an online marketing perspective, this is the one question Google Analytics can definitely answer.

What you see here is a website that relies heavily on direct, display and organic search traffic. While there’s nothing wrong with this approach, the data shows where there is room for improvement. For example, the website owner may want to focus resources on social media and email marketing.

11. Site Content

If you don’t know which pages of your website are most visited, you’re missing out on some seriously powerful data.

Once you know which pages are attracting the most visitors, you can then adjust your marketing plan accordingly. For example, you may find that content around a certain topic is most popular. In this case, it makes sense to focus more time on this in the future. In other words, give your readers what they want.

However, there is more here than just the top visited pages. You should also review this data:

12. Review Top Keywords

Like most businesses, you probably dream of the day when your website reaches the top of Google for your target keywords. This isn’t easy to accomplish, but it’s a goal you’ve probably set.

Google Analytics can help you understand if you’re on the right path. Consider the following:

This shows which keywords are driving the most traffic, the % of new sessions and the number of new users.

Is your website built on the WordPress content management system (CMS)?

If so, you know that there are tens of thousands of plugins to choose from. While each one is worth considering, you’ll probably rely on a select few to help you reach your goals.

All in One SEO Pack is one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time. There are a few reasons for this:

It’s free and easy to use.

It produces results.

It helps you to better formulate a sound SEO strategy.

With all that driving your interest, let’s examine a few ways that you can use this online marketing tool to your advantage.

13. XML Sitemap Features

Here’s what the plugin’s official download page has to say about this:

“Out of the box support for XML sitemaps for all major search engines, with automatic submission to ensure search engines can easily crawl your site. Choose between dynamic or static sitemaps for increased performance.”

If you understand the importance of creating an XML sitemap, you’ll realize that this is a big deal.

14. Implementation of SEO Modules

This isn’t a feature that all users of the plugin rely on, but you definitely want to take a closer look.

From social media to a file editor, new SEO modules are always being added. If you need any help with this part of your website – and you may – don’t hesitate to experiment with each module, to see what it can do for you.

15. Custom Post Types Support

Is there more to your website than content based blog posts?

If you answered yes, you’ll enjoy the fact that the All in One SEO plugin offers out-of-the-box support for custom post types.

This is important in many cases, such as if you are using e-commerce software or have installed a forum.

With some plugins, you’re limited to the type of support that is available. With this one, however, custom post types are treated the same as the rest.

16. To Quickly Edit SEO Data

As you probably know, there may be times when you need to edit your SEO data. This can be difficult, if you don’t have a plugin in place to make your life easy.

This plugin protects against wasted time, when editing your SEO data. Instead of jumping from page to page to make changes, everything is in one centralized location.

As you can see, it only takes a couple seconds to click the edit button, adjust the data and save it. It’s features like this that make the All in One SEO Pack one of the most convenient plugins you’ll ever find.

The more data that you can collect, in regards to your website and competitors, the better off you’ll be.

This is why SEMrush has become one of the top tools for online marketers. It doesn’t matter if you are starting a business or have been serving clients for many years, there’s never an excuse for overlooking the mounds of data pertaining to your website, competitors and industry as a whole.

There are hundreds of ways to use SEMrush, but we’re going to examine four of the best.

17. To Review Your Backlink Profile

Run a simple search on your domain and you’re presented with a report that looks like this:

While every bit of data is important, you want to pay close attention to the number of backlinks. In addition to the total, the information is also broken down by referring domains and referring IPs.

Continue down the report and you’ll find even more backlink data:

If you run a report for your own website, you can quickly learn more about the health of your link profile.

Conversely, if you run a report for a competitor, you can use the data to help you secure high quality links.

18. Who’s Your Competition?

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you know there is plenty of competition. A search for NeilPatel.com shows the following competitors:

With SEMrush, you can click through to each competitor and examine the data associated with the site (more on this below).

19. An Understanding of Top Organic Keywords

Are you achieving success through your organic SEO strategy?

You can begin to answer this question by reviewing your top organic keywords.

Remember to review more than the keyword list. You should also focus on the four columns on the right side of the report. These show:

Position

Volume

CPC

Traffic

If nothing else, this will show you how you’re performing in the search engines and whether or not you need to adjust your strategy to focus on a different set of keywords.

20. Competitor Breakdown

Above, we talked about how you can use SEMrush to pinpoint your competition.

You may want to go one step further, by reviewing your competitor breakdown. This provides a long list of all your organic competitors, often numbering well into the thousands.

You may not have time to review each competitor, but you should see what the top 5 or 10 are doing. The report is broken down by:

Domain

Competition Level

Common Keywords

SE Keywords

SE Traffic

SE Traffic Price

Ads Keywords

If you’ve learned everything you can about your own website, it’s time to turn your attention to the competition. With a detailed report, you’ll better understand what your competitors are doing and how you’re stacking up.

Conclusion

Are you among the group of marketing professionals who devote most your time to digital marketing activities?

If you answered yes, then the right tools can improve your efficiency and generate top results.

With this post, it’s my hope that you now have a better idea of how to use five of the most powerful online marketing tools.

What are your thoughts on these tools? Do you have any other tips for making the most of each one? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.